The Verve Energy documents, which date back as far as the 1960s will be manually scanned and turned into searchable PDFs.

Clockwork owner Ted Mangan invested in four Fuji Xerox C4250 Docuscan machines and put together a team of 12 to undergo the monumental task.

“We will be using four new C4250s in conjunction with the machines we already have onsite, we are bringing in eight new temporary employees and dedicating four of our existing staff members,” he said.

“The deadline date has been set for the end of the financial year and we have built in two weeks’ contingency, but I imagine we may find ourselves working around the clock towards the end.”

Mangan said some of the files haven’t been opened in 40 years, and said a great deal of care had to be taken to ensure each page was fully searchable in PDF form.

He added said that the unorthodox contract made good business sense.

“It is not something that comes up every day, but there is money to be made in it and it is something we are going to continue doing in the future.”

Clockwork Print is a 30-staff business based across two sites in Perth.

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